Kamakawi Word of the Day

eletiele

• (n.) parrot [< Zhyler]

Henai ia kaneko oi’i: Keli, Kaneko Eletiele!
“Meet my cat: Keli, the Parrot Cat!”

Notes: HAPPY CATURDAY!

Today was quite an eventful day for Keli. Not only did she have to get up, eat food and lie around, but she had to deal with a major change in her environment: A new rug! No pictures yet, though; that’ll come next week. For today, let me introduce you to my Parrot Cat:

Whenever my wife picks up Keli, she clambers up onto her shoulder and then stands up to get a better view of things. This is only when Erin picks her up; she doesn’t do this when I pick her up, or when strangers pick her up. For some reason she’s decided that Erin is her perch.

Thankfully, a few days back Erin took a picture of this phenomenon, so we have it on record. I don’t know why I never thought to take a picture (it would be a lot easier). But, there it is.

You know, she’s quite happy to sit up there. She’ll sit up there as long as Erin will allow it. And she doesn’t seem at all disturbed when Erin starts to crouch over under the strain…

Today’s word is a borrowing from the Zhyler word eržel (in the orthography, er.el). In Zhyler, it’s derived from the same root as “to talk”, so an eržel is a “talking bird”.

ana

• (n.) duck
• (nm.) a boy’s given name

Mata ei i ka ana mawa.
“I see two swimming ducks.”

Notes: Time to get some A words up in here, nahmean? I mean, less than 20?! Not cool, brah. Not cool.

There are, of course, two words for “duck”: this one and kuaki. They both mean “duck” and are used interchangeably. Kuaki is onomatopoeic, so kids love it (just like sugar), but it enjoys adult use as well.

It doesn’t bother me, the two words, because I love ducks. And hey, check this out! Here are two ducks that came to visit me in the pool out back my house this past spring!

Let me tell you, that was a red letter day!

THREE CHEERS FOR DUCKS!

(I’ll let you cheer on your own.)

ikine

• (n.) hen

Ikine i iki eine.
“A hen is a female chicken.”

Notes: I’d like to diverge from my prepared remarks to talk a little bit about hens.

I’m a big, big fan of chickens—as I am of all animals, of course. And in dealing with chickens, it does become important, on occasion, to distinguish between a male and female chicken (most of the time to figure out whether or not the bird you’ve got is going to give you an egg). Languages have three strategies (among many possibilities, I imagine) for dealing with this eventuality:

1. Separate Lexemes: hen “female chicken”, cock “male chicken”
2. Masculine/Feminine Marker: niño “boy”, niña “girl” (had to stray from chickens—and English—here)*
3. Prolix Expression: female chicken, male chicken

Kamakawi is somewhere in between 2 and 3. When necessary, one appends the iku for either “woman” or “man” to a noun to designate the female or male version of that noun. This comes from the prolix expression which was reduced over time, giving Kamakawi two suffixes: -ne (from eine) and -’o (from hopoko [initially]). These suffixes, though, don’t have the status that, for example, -a and -o have in Spanish—that is, they have a function within the grammar, but they’re still kind of outsiders (like the -ee suffix in English).

The status of these things seem to be in flux in most languages, though. English, for example, started out with different words for the male and female versions of most domesticated animals (hen vs. cock, cow vs. bull, hound vs. bitch, etc.). Over time, one of these words took over as the word (or some third contender), and the others took on more specialized meanings (or simply fell into disuse). It seems to parallel the move away from an agrarian society to an industrial one, but I won’t make any claims.

In Kamakawi, then, you actually have terms that arise from constructions that, essentially, mean “male chicken” or “female chicken”, which erode over time and simplify—and these constructions can actually coexist with and are distinguished from the full prolix expressions “male chicken” and “female chicken” as shown in the example sentence above.

That’s my poultry-related digression for the year. I don’t feel bad for having used it up so soon, if you’re wondering. It’s always a good day when you can talk about chickens.

* Note: I recognize that this example is, in fact, one of two types, and the type shown here differs from Kamakawi’s. That is, in Spanish, one uses -o or -a with an otherwise grammatically ill-formed (and, in this case, unpronounceable) root. In Kamakawi, the suffixes are applied to a fully-formed word. This is slightly (though crucially) different from Spanish.

mitatiala

• (n.) turkey [< Zhyler]

Mitatiala takenevi i nanai oi’i.
“The kind turkey is my friend.”

Notes: Happy Turkey Day!

Indeed, the day has come where everyone in America traditionally feasts on turkeys. I am a meat eater, but I do love turkeys (the birds). They’re such charming creatures—like all animals. I feel bad about eating them, but obviously not bad enough not to.

It’s troubled me for some time, though, the whole meat-eating thing. The only thing that I think rescues it (a bit) is that many animals are, in fact, devoured in the wild. So it’s not as if eating meat is unnatural (if naturalness can be considered a valid measure of morality [about which I have my qualms]). Still, I really like all animals. They’re so pleasant…

The Kamakawi word for “turkey” comes from the Zhyler word mxsa.al (in the romanization, müsažal), and the Zhyler word is a combination of the stem müsa, which has to do with walking, and the suffix -žal, which denotes birds. Thus, a turkey in Zhyler is a “walking bird”—an oblique reference to The Simpsons.

Enjoy your Thanksgiving today, if you live in America! If not, enjoy your Thursday!

fuila

• (n.) bird
• (adj.) flying
• (v.) to fly

Takemi takeke fuila.
“Free as a bird.”

Notes: The word for “bird” in Kamakawi is a bit like the word for “fly” (the insect) in English—the only difference is the designation. I don’t know how the fly (the insect) got the honor of being the zero-derived nominal form of the verb “to fly”. It’s crazy! Buzzy little things, flittin’ around this way and that… That honor belongs to the mighty bird! And so it is in Kamakawi.

If the stray stroke at the bottom of the iku for fuila is a determinative, it’s the only one that occurs in Kamakawi. It’s like a little swoosh of air. It does the job.

kanaka

• (n.) animal
• (adj.) animal (bestial; used to describe something that is animal in nature)
• (v.) to be natural (said of beings)

Mata ia iu ipe kanaka!
“Look at those animals!”

Notes: Today’s post is an advertisement for Sylvia Sotomayor’s Kēlen Word of the Day blog, because…man! Take a look at this post!

Reluctant to click? Let me list just some of the animals Sylvia has taken pictures of in Australia:

• Bats
• Koalas
• Penguins
• Sea Lions
• Tree Frogs

And there are more. And they’re all on the same page! There are some incredible shots there. Let me tell you, this didn’t make my day: It made my month. (And I didn’t even mention the hopping kangaroo!)

So, yeah. Head over there. I promise you, you will not be disappointed. (And if you are, this animal fanatic doesn’t want to hear about it.)

This iku is a strange one, because I’m certain I had a reason for designing it the way I did, but what that reason is completely escapes me. The word, of course, is based on the Hawaiian word kanaka, which means “man”. Perhaps it was an inside joke that the iku is built off the glyph for hopoko, the Kamakawi word for “man”.

Anyway, let’s think about this. There’s a little notch on the right side which means…something. And then a slash through the leg. I think my original idea was to draw a connection between humans an animals, which is why this iku is built off hopoko. As for the notch and the slash… I get the impression that the slash is supposed to be a claw of some kind. I don’t know. It’s a puzzle. Anyway, there it is. What, what, rah-ther, and all that.

It’s all right to have some mysteries in one’s writing systems, so long as there aren’t too many (I mean true mysteries, not just etymologies that have been lost to one’s imagined speakers). With Kamakawi’s system, I think there’s just the right amount.

Now, to bed! Or…water first, then bed! And teeth brushing… Something or other.

leta

• (n.) wing
• (n.) bed sheet
• (n.) sail, wind sail
• (adj.) able to fly or waft on the breeze (flight-worthy)
• (v.) to glide

A ae ei ie leta oi’i.
“I’m in your bed sheet.”

Notes: Messing up your sleeping arrangements.

HAPPY CATURDAY!

Here’s Keli looking rather cattish:

This is, without a doubt, one of my all-time favorite iku. I had no ideas for it going in (there is no easy combination of the awkward le and the elegant ta), so I just kind of drew what came to my head when I thought of wings. This is what I came up with. I kind of think of it as like a funky dancing bird strutting its stuff. This is one I’d get as a tattoo, if I were the type to get tattoos.

I think Keli would enjoy having wings. She could fly about the apartment, from the loft to the floor, and pretty much have the run of things. And she’d look cute when she curled up to go to sleep (she’s sleeping by my feet right now). She’s quite the cat.

ou

• (phon.) glyph for the sequence ou
• (n.) hawk
• (n.) any bird of prey

Ou… Ou… Fuila katavaka… Fuila katavaka…
“Bird of prey… Bird of prey… Flying high… Flying high…”

Notes: Am I going to die…?

That’s the Doors’ “Bird of Prey”. The Doors are one of the least deservedly dismissed bands of the late 60s and early 70s. And even then, those who appreciate the Doors often fail to recognize that Ray Manzarek, John Densmore and Robby Krieger—you know, the Doors that weren’t named Jim Morrison—were excellent musicians. I think what they did with Jim Morrison’s spoken-word pieces in An American Prayer was outstanding, and well worthy of attention.

This post, though, was inspired by one of the silliest movies the 1980s ever produced: Iron Eagle. In this ridiculous movie, an airforce-brat’s father is captured by a wildly-stereotypical Middle Eastern nation, and when the US government is too “wimpy” to go in and save him (they want to engage in “negotiations”, a character playing a general says derisively), the man’s 18 year-old son goes in and save him himself. He and his friends manage to steal two airplanes off an airforce base, steal military intelligence reports, defraud the American government, and disobey direct orders—and, of course, the 18 year-old that isn’t even an airforce pilot goes into Stereotypistan and rescues his father, destroying an oil refinery and a whole lot of Middle Eastern soldiers in the process.

And what does he get for it? Jail? The death penalty? Nope. He’s accepted into the Airforce Academy—the college that had previously rejected him because his grades were so terrible—all in exchange for his silence about what he did.

Two words: Hi. Larious.

Back to Kamakawi, the ou is one of the three sacred animals of Kamakawi culture. It’s gone through a process of amelioration so that now it just means “hawk”, but originally it referred to a flying beast so powerful it could eat a bowl of habaneros and still feel cold. So it goes.

This is the second in my highly irregular three sacred animals of Kamakawi culture series. You can expect the third installment at an unexpected time (to be precise: five months prior to this, the last installment!).

Oh, and, of course, when it’s used as a phonological glyph, it doesn’t have the line determinative beneath it. I decided not to include both versions since I apparently forgot to do that on several other posts that have come recently. Oops.

and

ne

• (syl.) glyph for the syllable ne in the Kamakawi syllabary
• (n.) seagull

Ane ne ima.
“Seagulls are really loud.”

Notes: I think that’s a pretty good seagull. Originally, it looked a lot more like the little “m” seagulls we learn to draw in kindergarten, but the iku was made more angular and stretched to fit what came to be the canonical glyph box over time.

and

pi

• (syl.) glyph for the syllable pi in the Kamakawi syllabary
• (n.) pelican
• (v.) to have space (for), to have a large container, to have room for

Ka hava pi ie nawa.
“The pelican ate the fish.”

Notes: This iku derives from an earlier pictograph of a pelican. Now it looks like what you see above. I still think it’s pretty close. It may on account of my familiarity with the script, but I still see a pelican when I look at this one.

This iku ended up being one of my favorites, shapewise, so I found a way to use it in a bunch of different words. By and by they’ll show up here.